Fragments of the Gaze

Earlier I posted about my ongoing research into the settlement of Russian Old Believers in Woodburn, Oregon.  The Oregon Historical Society provided me with some very interesting material related to the Old Believers, although from a source base I would not have originally thought to investigate- the records of the now defunct Valley Migrant League.  Part of the much larger 'War on Poverty' initiative begun under President Johnson, the Valley Migrant League (VML) was one of the first projects of its kind to be funded through an Office for Economic Opportunity grant.  The VML initially sought to provide migrant laborers, then streaming into Oregon during the spring and summer months, a means by which they could improve themselves via adult education, health information, and establishment of child care facilities to take care of the migrant's children.

While the primary ethnic group the VML concerned itself with was the growing Hispanic migrants, curiously the Russian Old Believers also came into the new bureaucratic organization's gaze- this despite the fact that the Old Believers were certainly not a migrant population and their numbers paled in comparison to the Hispanic 'majority-minority' group.  Mostly they were farmers, who practiced their craft in some of the poorest conditions in Brazil and Turkey, and had no tradition of engaging in migrant labor patterns as found, then,  in the United States.  Nevertheless, the Old Believer immigrants shared some common characteristics with Hispanic migrant workers that made them visible to the eyes of the VML; few spoke english, few possessed skills (at least in the appraisal of the VML) that would lift them out of subsistence farming, and they almost all practiced an insular lifestyle that would keep them (again in the estimation of the VML) from truly integrating into American culture.

Often in the VML documents I surveyed, there is the expressed desire to provide all needy populations in the Woodburn area with opportunities to advance themselves, but often these desires were tempered around a belief that economic empowerment would transform these populations into good 'tax-paying' citizens and speed along their acculturation process.  Yet transformation of a group from one set of cultural norms to another is an especially difficult process, particularly if the assimilating group has little to no knowledge of the culture with whom they are attempting to transform.  The VML, to this end, commissioned a few reports on the Hispanic and Russian groups then living in their intended work area.

For today's post I would like to look at some fragments from one particular report drafted in 1966 by Paul F. Griffin PhD and Ronald L. Chatham PhD, entitled "Comparative Analysis of the Mexican-American and Russo-American Migrant in the Willamette Valley, Oregon".  It is a hybrid sociological/anthropological report, focusing on the cultural traditions of the populations surveyed.  It is 216 pages long, with the Russian component of the report containing 70 of those pages.  Again, it is interesting to note that the Russian immigrants took up one-third of the report despite being a very small group as compared to the Hispanic presence.  Forty-five of these pages are devoted to three areas: case histories of two specific Russian immigrant families, some perceptions of the American citizens in the area of the Russians and a listing of known Russian immigrant families.  While the two case histories and the listing of Russian immigrant families are invaluable sources for my continuing research, the responses by American citizens really piqued my interest.

Take this response, given by a 23 year-old clerk at the U.S. National Bank branch in Woodburn:

This type of complaint was common among citizens quoted in this report.  What strikes me in this comment, easily one of the more virulent, is that the 23 year-old clerk assumes that learning American culture is 'even more simple' than engaging in monetary transactions.  

Not everyone was so quick to judge, or assume that the Russians immigrants would remain ensconced in their isolation.  This next response, from a 26 year-old teacher, was one fragment among many I found in educational materials that indicated the teaching profession was much better informed as to the history and tradition of the Russian Old Believers- indeed, this teachers acknowledgement that the Russians practiced a different form of Christianity was one of the first instances I came across in which the distinction was even made:

Note how the teacher states that Russian children are picking up english with greater rapidity than 'Spanish background children'- other sources I came across made similar comments in that the Russian immigrants were quick to pick up some aspects of American culture, such as the language and acquisition of material goods, while still managing to hold on to their religious beliefs.  The 'flexibility' in cultural practices of the Old Believer's, a characteristic noted in their history but largely missing from the early 60's assessments, came to the fore in Woodburn over time.

The first two fragments presented above were from the Urban standpoint- if you could call the small town of Woodburn in the 60's urban- while this last selection comes from a member of the community who probably had the most in common, in terms of work and lifestyle, with the Russian immigrants:

This was one of the few responses found in the report that actually engages in some empathy.  Many responses centered on the 'unclean' nature of the Russian immigrants- that they 'stank' or did not manage to keep their property in tidy order.  Few actually concentrated on seeing the issue for what it was- this was a new group of immigrants whose experiences beforehand differed greatly from that encountered in the United States.  The farmers last comment, that "we would maybe look bad in Russia", was certainly not indicative of many respondents attitudes.  

What makes these observations so interesting is that this kind of information is what the VML would base its 'engagement' policy upon towards Russian immigrants.  Since the perception was that the Russian immigrants were 'dirty', programs that targeted distributing health information were emphasized.  Adult education classes, held at night, attempted to get Russian adults to enroll in order to learn english.  This report, and several others commissioned by the VML and the local government, not only helped fix the gaze of the bureaucracy on the Russian immigrants but they also gave indicators towards directions where the gaze could shift.  However, like many of these early reports, little attempt was made to reconcile the larger questions regarding the practice of Old Belief and the assimilation of these practitioners into American culture.  In failing to do so, acculturation  programs would be met with little enthusiasm and, in some areas like education, outright conflicts developed.  

Next time I would like to take a look at an education source- the 'Manual for Educators of Old Believer Children', drafted by the Marion County (where Woodburn is located) Independent Education District.